The outstanding original cut of the late Hortense Ellis' Hell & Sorrow, originally produced and released by Jimmy Radway for his Fe Me Time label in the mid 1970s and backed with the legendary Big Youth's DJ counteraction Tribulation - now reissued via Death Is Not The End's 333 series.
Repress
Songs ’94-’98 is a smart selection of material from The Cat’s Miaow, an Australian indie-pop group that gifted their decade with some of its finest songs. Released on World Of Echo, the album draws from the group’s string of excellent seven-inch singles, a small clutch of compilation contributions, and features one previously unreleased song, “I Take It That We’re Through”, recorded in 1998. Part of the burgeoning international pop underground of the nineties, The Cat’s Miaow’s legend has only built over subsequent decades, as more people discover this most quixotic and curious of groups: a recent appearance on A Colourful Storm’s compilation of Australian indie-pop, I Won’t Have To Think About You, is testament to their enduring influence. In part emulating the selection of tracks on the 1997 CD-only compilation, Songs For Girls To Sing, Songs ’94-’98 is also the group’s first ever full-length 12” vinyl collection. The Cat’s Miaow started out in 1992 as a home-recording duo, Bart Cummings (guitar, bass, vocals) and Andrew Withycombe (bass, guitar) taking time out from duties with Girl Of The World and The Ampersands (respectively), knocking out songs on Withycombe’s four-track. Soon joined by Kerrie Bolton (vocals) and Cam Smith (drums), the quartet spent the next five years quietly, slowly working away in the suburbs of Melbourne, recording gem after gem of independent pop. Like many of their Australian precursors or peers – The Particles, Even As We Speak, The Cannanes – The Cat’s Miaow were more successful overseas, a sadly typical phenomenon within the Australian musical landscape. The Cat’s Miaow were always worldly and stylish, anyway, each seven-inch single a refined artifact, each song a peaceable jewel. You could hear some relationships with other music – someone (if not everyone) in The Cat’s Miaow was a Galaxie 500 fan; there’s a minimalism to the playing and melodies that recalls Young Marble Giants, Marine Girls, Beat Happening – but the spirit in these songs is endearingly individualised, the result of a hermetic vision, an ideal of what a simple, unadorned pop song could be. They had a winning way with simplicity, songs like “Autumn”, “Crying” and “I Can’t Sleep Thinking You Hate Me” passing by in the blink of a moistened eye, and when they stretched out, as on “Firefly”, you can hear hints of the drifting ambience they’d perfect in their other band, Hydroplane. It’s not much of a surprise that The Cat’s Miaow found a receptive audience, and no small amount of support, from the networked communities of indie-pop labels and fanatics that developed in the nineties – they released records on imprints like Drive-In, Darla, Bus Stop and Quiddity, shared a flexi-disc with Stereolab, and appeared on countless compilations over the years. But they also understood the importance of the local: their first few cassettes reached the world’s mail routes via Wayne Davidson’s legendary Melbourne tape label, Toytown; they turned up on a split single with Davidson’s group, Stinky Fire Engine; they appeared on a tribute cassette for one of Australia’s finest, The Sugargliders, and indeed that’s Josh Meadows of said group playing wah guitar on “Stay”. The Cat’s Miaow also rarely played live – one launch gig, for the Munch video compilation, and a few parties – which is a great way to maintain mystique. Cosmopolitan yet homely, dedicated to their craft, The Cat’s Miaow always felt a little like a group moving in slow motion, using that pace and focus fully to embrace the art of the perfectly stated pop song – every element in place, no flash and no fuss, no excess, just the core of the thing. Few managed to tease such fierce poetry from such understated, elegant means. From Australia or anywhere.
From 2019 to 2023 Lindsay Reamer worked as a field scientist. With a guitar and a bag of books in tow, she would leave her home in Philadelphia for the postcard scenes of the American landscape to gather data on visitation in National Parks. She counted cars and RVs, surveyed visitors, and made a temporary home for a few weeks at a time wherever she landed. All the while, she collected her own observations like specimens and slowly weaved the songs that would form her debut full-length, `Natural Science.' Recorded throughout 2023 by Lucas Knapp, `Natural Science' paints with a full spectrum. Humor rubs elbows with heartbreak. Acoustic guitars brush up against synthesizers, cradling Reamer as she sings about the American Chestnut tree extinction, employee gossip at a Day's Inn, fishing beside a power plant, turf grass farms, and waking up next to day-old take-out. The indifferent beauty of nature is held up next to the everyday as Reamer does her very best to find clues for navigating the latter by musing upon both. Following the release of her self-produced EP `Lucky' (Dear Life Records) in 2021, Reamer assembled a band with musicians from Philadelphia's vibrant music community and began working her once solo-acoustic songs into full band arrangements. After a brief flirtation with dance music which led to 2022's viral single "Touch Tank," Reamer settled into a sound that lies somewhere in the folkrock-pop matrix, explored with the humor and lightness of songwriters like Sheryl Crow or Melanie. Reamer reflects: "When I heard the songs with the band, I knew it was time to make the record. It felt like something I had been working towards my whole life. I grew up around musicians but I never thought I was good enough to be in a band or even to make my own music. My grandmother Joan gave me voice lessons after school, my mom was an opera singer, and my dad a guitar player. But it wasn't until a few years ago that I realized I could do it. It didn't matter if I could shred on the guitar or something. It was like some illusion shattered." Reamer is a sincere storyteller. The self-doubt and heartbreak expressed in songs like "Spring Song," "Sugar," or "Red Flowers" give way to the triumphant moments of self-acceptance and love in "Lucky," "Necessary," and "Figs and Peaches." `Natural Science' chronicles a path to confidence, an honest reflection of someone with the capacity to hold a deep well of emotion who also makes sure to not take it all too seriously. "Gardens on the land / Castles on the beaches / I trust my hand and / Pluck my figs and peaches," Reamer sings, as she works to reconcile the strange difficulty we have at finding happiness despite the obvious beauty all around us.
"In the summer of 2021 I was introduced to the French filmaker Émilie Deleuze in Paris. She asked me if I would create a soundtrack for a film she intended to make titled Cinq Hectares. When I asked Emilie what the story of the film was about she replied "It's a comedy and road movie , about a guy driving a tractor across France". I love road movies and I had never composed a movie soundtrack before so I immediately said "yes". I recorded the soundtrack in the summer of 2022 in east London with the help of producers James Rand & Thomas Gorton of @godcolony and a bunch of great young musicians they introduced me to, one of which @alwhite who now plays saxophone with Primal Scream. Émilie's film is an absolute cracker and I'm very proud of the soundtrack. Hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we did making it”
Bobby Gillespie, June 2024
THE CHURCH's ("Under The Milky Way") main man Steve Kilbey solo Best Of: A stylishly designed anthology of solo and collaborative recordings curated into a deluxe gatefold sleeve double album. Spanning the years 1987 to 2023, the album moves through varying styles and moods all of which are a pleasure to listen to, whether in your car on a long country road or through the city at night or sitting down and absorbing the lush audio experience. Songs taken from 20 albums (one song from each album) all of which will be made available once more. Deluxe gatefold sleeve with full colour printed inner bags. Photos courtesy of Toby Burrows, includes arguably some of the best songs Steve Kilbey has written (and co-written). The very first album of its kind dealing with Kilbey's not unimpressive solo career.
Morgan Wade was feeling the urge to simplify after a period of relentless touring and intense media scrutiny during the last couple of years. Every time she sat down with her guitar, new songs just started pouring out. 'They were just coming to me left and right', Wade says. The Virginia-born singer-songwriter made a choice to return to the basics for her new album 'Obsessed', a solo-written, stripped-down 14-track collection produced by her touring guitarist Clint Wells that showcases Wade at her rawest and most vulnerable. 'I really wanted to get back to doing what I used to do', she says. 'Just make this whatever I wanted it to be'. Wade's third album and follow-up to 2023's 'Psychopath', 'Obsessed' puts the focus on Wade's storytelling abilities and singular voice. She writes with incredible force about the ache for home and the emotion of being reunited with loved ones, of feeling dangerously preoccupied with someone, and of being in situations that society might consider outside the norm. On 'Obsessed', Wade also does a thorough examination and inventory of her journey as a person, not sparing any ugly details when she's been the one at fault. It's a fearless look into the life of one of country music's most exciting talents, arriving right as she's hitting her stride. This is a x14 trk double black LP Vinyl & standard CD. Marketing activity across all media outlets.
Since its founding back in 2014, Blume has carved a unique place in cultural landscape, issuing free-standing works, spanning the historical and contemporary, that represent singular gestures of creativity within the field of experimental sound. Joining their broad efforts in building networks of context and understanding that already includes the works by Werner Durand, Sarah Hennies, Bruce Nauman, John Butcher, Jocy de Oliveira, Mary Jane Leach, Valentina Magaletti, Alvin Curran, Julius Eastman, Alvin Lucier, and shortly after returning with the first ever vinyl release to attend to James Tenney’s legendary “Postal Pieces”, the label is now offering a brand new, ambitious work by the American composer Ben Vida, entitled “Vocal Trio”, conceived, performed, and recorded in Bremen, Germany, during the Spring of 2022. A truly stunning work of compositional conceptualism, combining the ideas of systems based synthesis with real-time vocal collaboration - issued in a highly limited vinyl edition of 200 copies mastered by Stephan Mathieu, featuring specially commissioned liner notes by Bradford Bailey and a leporello insert offering the piece visual score - it’s a landmark in contemporary experimental practice and arguably the most forward-thinking and exciting piece by one of the most exciting American artists working today.
Ben Vida first emerged during the mid 1990s within a loose constellation of experimental musicians, centred around a performance series of improvised workshops at the Myopic Bookstore in Chicago, alongside Jim O'Rourke, Kevin Drumm, Chad Taylor, and the other future members of Town and Country - Jim Dorling, Joshua Abrams, and Liz Payne - the band within which he would gain widespread recognition over the following years. Like many other members of that scene, Vida remains a restless product of a fleeting context - Chicago during the 1990s and early 2000s - continuously undermining concrete notions of idiom and signifier within a practice that witnessed him rendering bristling abstractions within Pillow, glacial melodies with Town and Country, the art-rock mayhem of Bird Show Band, and the angular, driving indie rock of Joan of Arc, before becoming immersed in a practice of systems based synthesis, beginning in the 2010s, that guided much of his first decade of output as a solo performer and composer.
As early as 2013, he began to incorporate acoustic sound sources - specifically the human voice - into his work. It was this shift, evolving and refining itself over the last decade, that underscores radically the leap in his practice represented by “Vocal Trio”, a work that encounters Vida composing for the human voice with the ideas that allow for synthesis - transferring the underlying concepts and structures of both subtractive and additive synthesis to the acoustic realm - without using a synthesiser.
During the Spring of 2022 Vida was in Bremen, Germany, collaborating on a dance piece with the choreographer Fay Driscoll, when the production fell into delays. Finding himself with time on his hands, a space at his disposal, and the company of two dancers - Amy Gernux and Lotte Rudhart - who were also singers, the idea for the piece - to utilising the larynx as audio paths (multi-harmonic or harmonically pure) while conceptualising each person’s mouth as a filter to sculpt the timbre and resonance of a given tone - began to take shape in his mind. Considering how typographical scores might be developed into a non-linguistic social framework, Vida drafted a single page of text - what became the score for “Vocal Trio” - accompanied by a set of harmonic suggestion and loose parameters, seeking a core meaning from each word's phonic make-up by each of the three singers (Vida, Gernux and Rudhart) singing as slowly as possible.
At the core of the pulsing vocal drones - intoxicating, harmonically rich long-tones - that make up the duration abstraction of “Vocal Trio”, is Vida’s regard for music as a social space. It is an experiment that seeks liberation through the act of collective music making, by challenging the terms through which the act of composing is perceived and then relinquishing control. The piece’s rehearsals were simply the three performers hanging out, allowing their knowing each other and natural dynamics to contribute to its form as the score, before recording during a single afternoon at the end of a number of days sharing company and space.
Creatively visionary and groundbreaking on numerous terms, as well as being intoxicatingly beautiful and remarkably listenable, Ben Vida’s “Vocal Trio” represents a striking step forward for one of the most ambitious and outstanding sonic artists working in the United States today. Issued by Blume in a highly limited vinyl edition of 200 copies mastered by Stephan Mathieu, featuring specially commissioned liner notes by Bradford Bailey and a leporello insert offering the piece visual score, this is hands down one of the most important contemporary records we’re likely to encounter in 2024.
-3rd album from veteran rap duo Dillon & Batsauce. Dillon on the raps & scratches, Batsauce on the beats. ('On Their Way' - 2018, 'Self Medicated' - 2020).
-Produced entirely by Batsauce, guest features include Grand Puba, Kool Keith, Quelle Chris, Reef the Lost Cauze, Headkrack and Jay Myztroh of Stono Echo.
-Atlanta, GA + Jacksonville, FL album release parties booked for end of July + Northeast Tour Run scheduled for August.
-Batsauce has been producing hip hop and soul for 20+ years with multiple albums on labels BBE (Barely Breaking Even) producing for his wife, soul-singer, Lady Daisey + Galapagos4 where he produced multiple projects for Qwazaar of Typical Cats. He is 1/3 of the group, 'The Smile Rays' (which includes Lady Daisey and Paten Locke). He's also done extensive work with Akrobatik, Mr. Lif and even has multiple songs with George Clinton!
-Dillon is an Atlanta, GA based MC/DJ who has been releasing records for 20 years, 10 of those years was running FULL PLATE, the label he started in 2013 with Paten Locke (RIP). Dillon has worked with many of Hip-Hop's elite from the old school to the true school such as Chuck D, Diamond D, Count Bass D, Kool Keith, Greg Nice, Grand Puba, Homeboy Sandman, J-Live, Quelle Chris, Sadat X, Ras Kass, Stacy Epps, Planet Asia, eLZhi, Slimkid3 of The Pharcyde - and the list goes on!
-Classic black, standard weight vinyl in full-color jacket w/ matte finish. Includes Download Card.
Underground hip-hop veterans, Dillon and Batsauce have been making unorthodox rap music together for nearly 20 years with a simple formula: Batsauce makes the beats, Dillon writes the songs, and whatever happens, happens. After carving out their own lane with a catalog of EPs and LPs over the past 2 decades, the duo has finally slowed down enough to ask themselves, 'What Have We Done'?
Is the title of their latest effort rhetorical or meant to be an actual question? If so, Dillon and Batsauce probably don't want to know the answer. They probably don't want you, the listener, to think too much about it either. Instead, 'What Have We Done' is an invitation to experience the trials and tribulations, the small wins and the big losses of being aging independent artists in an increasingly cut-throat world for music makers.
But Dillon & Batsauce aren't the only ones on this joyride, we also hear from a well-curated crew of characters they've befriended along the way, from bonafide legends like Grand Puba and Kool Keith to modern day rap heroes, Quelle Chris & Reef the Lost Cauze. The end result is a collection of songs that runs the gamut from personal to aspirational to...delusional. Whether it's 'too much' or 'not enough', the answer to the question, 'What Have We Done' remains open to interpretation. Perhaps it’s not a question at all, but merely the naturally visceral reaction when career creators look back at a life lived on the edge.
Track Listing: 1. What Have We Done (Intro) 2. Mind Made 3. Quiet as a Library 4. Eddie Farah 5. Make History 6. Cannonball feat. Grand Puba 7. Banana Peels 8. Accolades feat. Reef the Lost Cauze & Jay Myztroh 9. Wakin' up Hungry feat. Headkrack 10. Goin' Viral 11. Ready on the Left feat. Kool Keith 12. What Are We Doing (Interlude) 13. Watercolors feat. Quelle Chris 14. Speak Easy 15. Isiah Thomas 16. Rock Bottom 17. Yoga Flame
Astronaut is the eleventh studio album by English new wave band Duran Duran. Originally released on September 28, 2004, it was Duran Duran's first (and to date, last) full album since Seven and the Ragged Tiger (1983) to be recorded by the most famous five-member lineup of the band.
Astronaut was a commercial success, peaking at #3 on the UK Albums Chart to become the band's highest-charting album in the UK since Seven and the Ragged Tiger. The album also peaked at #17 on the U.S. Billboard 200 and reached the top ten in six other countries. The first single, "(Reach Up for The) Sunrise", debuted at #5 on the UK Singles Chart, and peaked ay #1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart.
FIRST TIME ON VINYL! AVAILABLE IN A BROWN & WHITE COLORED VINYL PRESSING IN A GATEFOLD JACKET WITH OBI LIMITED TO 1000 NUMBERED COPIES.
Memphis Rap legend Project Pat released his third studio album Layin' Da Smack Down in 2002 on CD and Cassette via Loud/Columbia/Hypnotize Minds. Following up Mista Don't Play, Project Pat spits rapid-fire street tales of the dirty south over DJ Paul and Juicy J's signature Three 6 Mafia bangin' 808 beats. From rowdy club tracks to smoother pimp tales and true-to-life stories of being incarcerated, Project Pat delivers another Hypnotize Minds North Memphis classic. The album also contains the single "Choose U" which would be reworked in 2007 for UGK's "International Players Anthem." Get On Down in partnership with Sony Music's CERTIFIED is proud to present Layin' Da Smack Down for the first time on vinyl. Pressed on colored vinyl packaged in a gatefold jacket with a printed insert and numbered OBI limited to 1000 copies.
ddwy the duo from London is back on Public Possession. Naomi and Ronan aka Nangi and Inner Totality continue to impress with their blend of organic, rhythmic dance music. Mystic vocals intertwine with layers of cosmic melodies. This record is a must for Balearic D.J.s, but will likely also be played out in sleazy dark basements or Pubs in the British countryside. You’ll place it, people will embrace it. That’s a guarantee!
80s alt country punk outfit, Lone Justice, with Maria McKee, Ryan Hedgecock, Marvin Etzioni and Don Heffington are in full flight with the release of a brand new 7". Taken from their forthcoming album, Viva Lone Justice, 'Teenage Kicks' is a rambunctious slice of punk angst that sounds like it was recorded in one take. It's a timeless anthem with a joyous riff that explodes into a hail of feedback. A favour returned as Maria McKee, the songwriter of Feargal Sharkey's only solo hit 'A Good Heart', Lone Justice cover The Undertones' Peel-approved favourite with the artwork of the single being a nod to the original. "As much as we loved Merle Haggard, George Jones, and many other authentic hard core Country artists, we were also deeply impacted by Punk; from the Velvet Underground (we were playing "Sweet Jane" live as early as 1983) to the MC5 ("Sister Ann" is on the album "Viva Lone Justice")." Backed with 'Nothing Can Stop My Loving You' that's cut with a wild, squeezebox-powered interpretation of the George Jones and Roger Miller country stomp. "Speaking of George Jones, here's one written by George Jones and Roger Miller. Two of our favorites! We played this song at nearly every show starting in 1983. This ragged and right live recording captures the fire from a sold out show at The Palace in Los Angeles and features Jo-El Sonnier on lead accordion documenting the only time Sonnier played with LJ. "Nothing Can Stop My Loving You" is the only live track on Viva Lone Justice." // "A roots rock band that took Los Angeles by storm in the 80s and developed a smaller but deeply enthusiastic following outside the Golden State
On 9 August, 2024, Merge Records reissues David Kilgour's A Feather in the Engine, remastered and pressed on vinyl for the very first time. Originally released in 2002, A Feather in the Engine followed two full-band efforts_1997's David Kilgour & the Heavy Eights and The Clean's 2001 album Getaway_and is thus almost startling in its intimacy. Recorded at home and mostly alone (The Verlaines' Graeme Downes provides lush string arrangements), Kilgour once called A Feather in the Engine "the most solo LP I've made." Interpolating his genius for guitar pop through acoustic guitars and gorgeous instrumentals, its melodies unfold gently, suggesting that the 13 songs here, written over the course of four years, were searching Kilgour as much as he was searching them. The dichotomy between A Feather in the Engine's pop songs and instrumentals fascinates the ear, drawing the listener closer and closer to Kilgour's virtuosic guitar playing when his lyrics aren't imparting his breezy charm. The depth of style he achieves_the psych pop of "Today Is Gonna Be Mine," the Velvet Underground-esque churn of "All the Rest," the chamber folk of "The Perfect Watch"_is daunting; listening to it now, every song feels capable of generating a dozen playlists, or like the spawning point of a new microgenre. Perhaps anomalous upon release, it's A Feather in the Engine's instrumentals that feel weightiest in this regard now. "Sept. 98" and "Backwards Forwards," respectively the opening and closing tracks of the album, are elegant, pastoral epics that call out into the yawning expanse, presaging the simmering ambient country of William Tyler and SUSS, while "Instra 2" pushes out the boundaries of Eastern-influenced psychedelia. Lovingly remastered (and in some cases remixed) from the original tapes by Tom Bell at Port Chalmers Recording Services, the vinyl reissue of A Feather in the Engine is a crucial opportunity to rediscover one of David Kilgour's best records, a handcrafted gem that perfects guitar pop's past while pointing to its future, idiosyncratic in its making and tantalizing in its potential. There is good reason for David Kilgour to be your favorite musician's favorite musician. A Feather in the Engine is good reason for him to become yours.
Vinyl Packaging: Full color jacket featuring original artwork by Callum Rooney. Can I Communicate With the Unknown? is the new album from Go By Ocean, moniker of Northern California based singer / songwriter / producer Ryan McCaffrey. Co-produced alongside Tim Bluhm (The Mother Hips) and David Glasebrook, the album features contributions from a wide cast of characters, ranging from the tight knit community of Phil Lesh’s much loved Terrapin Crossroads to the wider West Coast indie-rock scene, including members of The Mother Hips, Sugar Candy Mountain, ALO, Tea Leaf Green, and more. Building upon McCaffrey’s catalog of songs, the new album finds inspiration in the down-to-earth music of 1970’s Marin County, when songwriters like Michael Hurley and Jesse Colin Young lived out in Olema and Point Reyes, the kind of places where songs blow in on the breeze from the Pacific Ocean. Lyrically, the album traces a hero’s journey as the narrator struggles with addiction, eventually finding peace and freedom in a tumultuous world, wrestling with metaphysical and spiritual ideas along the way. Highly anticipated new album from Go By Ocean, co-produced by Tim Bluhm of The Mother Hips. Press coverage includes reviews and features in Austin Town Hall, Glide Magazine, Psychedelic Baby Magazine, and more. UK/EU Publicity handled by Chris Carr & Mal Smith. “...washed with breezy beachy vibes…” - Glide Magazine // “...marries the bright guitar arrangement of The Byrds with an updated indie appeal.” - The Wild Is Calling // “...you can almost feel the hope over the hills waiting for you with open arms.” - Austin Town Hall // “‘...satisfyingly artful and I would venture to guess you’ve never heard anything quite like it.” - Ear To the Ground Music // “We will be spinning the hell out of this record for the rest of the summer.” - Up To Hear Music // “...it’s not hard to imagine some of these songs floating in on the coastal fog, ascending ghosts indeed.” - Psychedelic Baby Magazine
S
Brand new vinyl reissue to celebrate the 40th anniversary of seminal
album Yelele by Georges Decimus and Jacob Desvarieux, from zouk
pioneers Kassav', includes the massive worldwide crossover hit "Zouk-la
se sel medikaman nou ni"
Whether in concert, or on the radio or TV, the image of Kassav' remains vivid in
the minds of listeners and spectators. The group, founded in 1979 by Jacob
Desvarieux, Georges and Pierre-Edouard Decimus, has become legendary, putting
Guadeloupe and Martinique on the musical map of the world. Touring the world
with zouk, a musical movement introduced and popularized by Kassav', their
albums have repeatedly been rewarded with both gold and platinum discs.
A victim of Covid in 2021, the loss of Jacob Desvarieux leaves a huge void.
The mix of Jacob Desvarieux and George Decimus with Jocelyne Beroard, JeanPhilippe Marthely, Patrick Saint-Eloi and Jean-Claude Naimro has played sold out
concerts in 82 countries. With texts recounting real life in the Caribbean world
their lively music draws on the rhythms of Guadeloupe's gwo-ka and Martinique's
ti-bwa. Transcending the well-defined codes of Caribbean music, they have turned
the 1980s and all the succeeding decades into a fabulous ballroom.
They have been welcomed in Japan and the USSR, where they became the first
group of black musicians to tour. Forty years after the group's creation, their
timeless hits continue to resonate
LP+7" (Clear Vinyl). When the Ramones lost it, the Zero Boys found it; Adding a slam brigade fist to the Blitzkrieg Beat. The Zero Boys managed to come with one of the best early 80's punk records, or one of the best records ever, period. From 1979 to 1983, the Indianapolis-based Zero Boys were the finest hardcore blitz in the Midwest if not all the lower 48 states. Compiled and released as a post-mortem following the band's breakup, History Of_ is the proof, if more was needed, that their take of American hardcore wasn't all white bread numbers. Yeah, they played shows with Minor Threat, Dead Kennedys, Subhumans, and others but in Terry "Hollywood" Howe's guitar there was harmonious terror and unstoppable cadence. Terry's licks and chops _ a leap beyond two or three chord punk _ offered a zone and measured count for drummer Mark Cutsinger and bassist David "Tufty" Clough, a rhythm unit in par with the Minutemen if not The Meters, to run lines like quicksilver. Meanwhile, frontman, Paul "Z" Mahern provides a constant wash from beginning to end. Originally released in 1984 with a limited-edition reissue in 2009, this 40th anniversary edition includes the original LP of `History Of...' and a 7" featuring four live recordings never previously pressed to vinyl and recorded at iconic hardcore/punk venue Crazy Al's in 1980: "Livin' In The 80's", "Stick To Your Guns", "Commies", and "I'm Absent".
Emerald vinyl LP is for Indies only. Cassette is also for indies only. San Francisco Bay Area-based metal desconstructionists’ latest is both inspired by the loss of a bandmate and the legacy of Oakland A’s legend Vida Blue. Time is a slippery fish. Loss has inspired Mamaleek’s latest full-length album, titled Vida Blue. This marks the San Francisco Bay Area metal deconstructionists’ eighth album and their third as a full lineup. Tragedy struck in March of 2023 when the band lost a longtime friend and member, keyboardist Eric Livingston, leaving the group, which began as a duo of two brothers and later expanded to a five-piece, now with only four members. Despite this profound loss, Mamaleek persevered, performing as a quartet at various festivals, including the 2023 edition of Tilburg. The band returned to the studio to create new material that appropriately reflects their journey through loss and honors their fallen comrade. The resulting album draws inspiration from the legacy of Oakland A’s baseball legend Vida Blue, whose former team coincidentally announced its relocation to Las Vegas that same year. The band members themselves describe this poignant chapter in their own words: “Time is a slippery fish. Maybe only someone like Vida could grasp it. Although he’s left time behind, his image and that lefty heat remain in the memories of many. Eventually they’ll be forgotten, and hopefully replaced with even more exultant ones. This musical recording is a reflection on loss and its acceptance. We explore several examples for each song, including the loss of pride, of money, of glory, of country, of sanity, of a favorite sports team, of significant others, and, every day, one’s self. It also explores various associated moods fear, panic, reverence, stoicism, and steadfastness—to arrive at a resolution: Loss is only a test, the glue that holds and erodes each memory, the connection that binds and loosens us all, pitch by pitch, inning by inning. This is your celebration.” Vida Blue is a person, moment, and memory, together the crystallization of apocalypse: “unveiling,” “disclosure.”
"Fucked Up formed in 2001 in Toronto, Canada. Meeting each other through the local diy hardcore punk scene they developed a cult following early on which blossomed into a long career of releasing genre expanding music.
""Another Day"" is their 7th full length album, they have released over 60 7” singles, countless hours of open-format guitar music, and toured consistently all over the world since early in their career.
Their first three LPs, “Hidden World,” “the chemistry of common life,” and “David Comes to Life” have all been canonised as classic, critically acclaimed, genre defining efforts. The three to follow, “Glass Boys,” “Dose Your Dreams,” and “One Day” have challenged expectations in scope, style, and delivery, the latter which was written and recorded within the span of 24 hours.
Alongside their LPs, the band have been releasing their more experimental “Zodiac” series since 2006. Fucked Up have released 9 12”s of compositional, genre-less, long format songs (20mins plus) corresponding to the Chinese Zodiac, diving ever deeper into narrative forms including a 4 act opera (year of the horse), a musical palindrome (“onno”).
Fucked Up has toured the world extensively and under extraordinary circumstances – a vegetable oil powered school bus through the mountains of the American West Coast, a literal slow boat to China across the sea of Japan, and of course a humble van on any highway that will have them – and bring the same idiosyncrasy to the stage that they do to their records."
